After reading your manifesto, I think it's cool that you want to switch up the current keycap design/group buy process, but picking a select group of beta testers to give most of your feedback is pretty strange. Even if they weren't already previous customers of yours, 10 people is a pretty small group to collect feedback from.
It makes me wonder just how much input you're actually willing to take from the IC form, or if any suggestions that are made through the form actually get considered. Especially if you want the set to be "as close to final as possible" by the time it hits IC...That sort of raises some questions about what the purpose of an IC really is, in this case.